Demographic Winter

We Baby Boomers rationalized having fewer kids by saying we were Saving the Earth. As luck would have it, our ecological religion of smaller families allowed us higher incomes and consumption than we could have had any other way. But we didn’t think through the human reality of that trade-off. Smaller families, more adults living with roommates instead of with families, more loneliness.

If there is any country in the world which ought to know the stupidity of yabbering about over-population, it is Russia. With a birth rate of about 1.2 and a decline of 6 million people over the past 20 years (12 million without immigration), Russia is in trouble. As Prime Minister Vladimir Putin puts it, "Without exaggeration, the central problem of contemporary Russia is demography, strengthening the family, [and] increasing the birth rate."

Welcome to Demography Is Destiny. We launched this to counter two media memes: that humans are a cancer which is destroying our planet and that world population is spiralling to unsustainable levels. The real story is that intelligent and inventive human will rise to the challenge of climate change and that our real problem is the coming demographic winter. The editors of Demography is Destiny are Marcus and Shannon Roberts, who live in Auckland, New Zealand. Send them your comments and suggestions.